Cartoons and Comics creators are fun ways for students to share information they have learned with others. I have explored several different tools for creating comics and cartoons. Below you will find my opinion of each:
ToonDoo
ToonDoo is my favorite tool out of the ones I explored. I loved the vibrant colors and all the choices. The format was very user friendly, drag and drop. The tool bar at the bottom was easy to use and adjust items in my strip. It is very easy to save and I did struggle a little to figure out how to share my comic. I went to the help and did what was suggested. I was able to share the visual with out having to link to a sight as you can see below. I would defiantly recommend this site.
I liked MakeBeliefsComix because it was able to be created in several different languages. The bilingual teachers at my campus would be able to use this application with out having translation issues. The pictures and backgrounds were not as colorful and inviting as ToonDoo, but it was functional. I had difficulty retrieving the strip. The site has you email it to yourself and a friend. I thought I would get it in my email box but it never came. So I went to my friend and had to forward the link to myself. I could not figure out how to embed it to my blog so you can see it with out having to link to another window. So click below to see my comic strip:
I did like that the site provided a lot of additional resources. I will be recommending it to teachers at my campus. There are lots of writing tools and a link to Bill Zimmerman resources.
I attempted to create a comic/cartoon in Pixton. Unfortunately, I could not get the Adobe 10 to download correctly onto Chrome or in Microsoft Edge. So I went into Chrome and found a comic creator called Story Top.
Here is the comic strip I created in Story Top on chrome.
Story Top was my least favorite out of the three apps I tried. It was fairly easy to make and had a decent selection of pictures and backgrounds. I struggled with being able to copy the link to share. I think I attempted at least 10 times to copy the link. Finally it worked and I was able to link it to my blog page. If your school is a heavy Chromebook user it might be a good app extension to add to your students Chrome books. It is simplistic for telling more of a cartoon story then a comic strip story.
In conclusion, how can you use these tools in your classroom. Well, I think there are lots of ways to use them. A teacher could create the beginning, and middle of a story that focuses on a concept being studied. Then students can finish the story either on paper or using the app to draw the ending. Another way would be to have students create a comic/cartoon to share a reflection on a book they are reading. Teachers can create cartoons and comics to advertise activities in the classroom and send it out to parents in a newsletters. As the librarian I might also send out comics/cartoons to advertise events or displays in the library to teachers. Encouraging them to share it with their students or sign up to join us in the library to participate. Kids love comics/cartoons creating one uses several higher order blooms taxonomy and digital taxonomy thinking skills. Such as Designing, planning, producing, just to name a few.
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